“It must be kept.”
“You will have to ride post from Poitou to do so”—he was dressing as he spoke—“but, Ste. Croix! What a fool I have been! I doubt if you will ever do that ride, Gaspard. Do you not see what this meeting at Orleans five days hence means?”
“No.”
“It is clear as daylight to me. Achon is hilt-deep with the Guise in their plans. ’Tis more than whispered that he is the brain behind the Cardinal. He overheard your conversation with Ponthieu. He knew that the letter the Gascon carried concerns the safety of the Prince. He has the letter with him now, presumably, and Ponthieu has given away the secret of reading a blank paper. Yet this meeting between Lorraine and the Chancellor—sworn enemies until now—is to take place five days hence; do you begin to see?”
“I think so; you mean that the execution of the sentence against Condé is delayed.”
“Precisely. And this goes with what I told you before. There will be delays. We shall have more time than we thought we had, and we shall save Condé. Parbleu! You will attend the meeting before starting for Poitou, and now for the hour.”
He buckled on his sword and, stepping to the window, opened the shutter. The storm had passed. It had ceased snowing, and morning was at hand. The forest lay beneath us, but we could make out nothing except a confused mass of dun shadow, streaked here and there with patches of white. Above it shifted an uneasy sea of cloud, through which, in the distant west, still glimmered the beacon fire on Beaulieu. Above the clouds there was a faint light, which, weak as it was, paled the glow of the lantern, and as we looked, a cock crowed shrilly.
“Hark!” exclaimed Marcilly; “day at last! It is time to start. Badehorn—the horses.”
And in a half-hour we were trotting through the snow toward Chenonceaux.
Our way was still through the chill arcades of the forest, yet dripping with melting snow. At first we were almost numbed with the cold, but the quick motion soon warmed our blood. Each moment it became lighter, and there was every prospect of the mild winter of the Land of Quinces giving us a fair day, such a storm as that of the night being unusual in the Orléanais. Although I had not slept, my mental excitement kept me unwearied; the interest of the adventure had seized hold of me, and in the struggle I had with myself I believed I had cast off the serpent’s skin of disloyal thought to my friend, and had no fear that I would reclothe myself in it. Now and again I was haunted by the recollection of Ponthieu; but I could not help reflecting that Marcilly was right, and that the best thing for my poor friend was to wait until we reached Orleans, and there use our influence, which was not small, to get him freed. It was running a risk, and it would have been more to my taste to have cut for him with the sword; but we did not even know where he was confined, and our enterprise would not permit us to linger on the heels of time. I say this in defence of what might otherwise have seemed unworthy conduct on my part. In this miserable confession of my folly and sin I have been utterly honest, and I cling, God alone knows why, to the memory of every small action that goes to show I was once not wholly lost.